


Me Tarzan, You Gene- Gene Autry Meets Tarzan: Lord of the Apes

by Desert_Rider



Category: Gene Autry - Fandom, Tarzan (Movies - Weissmuller), Tarzan - All Media Types
Genre: 1930's movie series, Crossover, Gene Autry tropes, Golden Age Hollywood, Imagine the story is in black and white, In the tradition of Hollywood heroes meeting, It may be out of date, Tarzan tropes, and the gorilla is played by a man in a gorilla suit, but you would have LOVED this in 1936
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:53:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28168782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Desert_Rider/pseuds/Desert_Rider
Summary: Legendary singing cowboy Gene Autry's brother is missing in Africa, when Gene goes to look for him, he and his sidekick, Frog Millhouse get falsely arrested by local police for diamond trafficking(See the plot of the movie- "Round-Up Time in Texas") They escape from the police, but get lost in the jungle.  When a lion scares the horses, Gene is left alone in the jungle.Little does he know he is about to meet Tarzan: Lord of the Apes.





	1. Me Tarzan, You Gene

**Author's Note:**

> I realize I'm writing a crossover for one fandom that doesn't exist and one fandom with one fanfic, for two series that are ninety years old.
> 
> But it's funny and cute, and please like it.

The mystery of what had happened to his brother was just about to be solved. Gene was sure if he could just find his way to Suspicion Valley, he would be able to piece together the answers. He rode through the thick broad leafed jungle, probably too fast. It was probably inevitable that Champion, unused to the boggy ground and terrain would lose his footing.

Gene felt him stumble and go down, he tried to stay in the saddle, but he was thrown clear and rolled, jarring his shoulder against the root of a big vine covered tree.

He looked up just in time to see Frog ride into the clearing, and hear a lion roar.

Champion reared and screamed, bolting past Frog’s horse, and Frog’s horse spun and raced away after it. For a moment, Gene could hear Frog’s protests, “No! Horsey, go back! We can’t just leave Gene there!” And then the dense jungle swallowed the sounds.

The lion stalked a few paces after the horses, chuffing like a freight train, and Gene lay still. Maybe the brush would hide him from the lion’s sight. He froze when he saw it stop and lower it’s huge head to the ground. He’d seen a scrawny, old, toothless lion in a circus once, and he was well familiar with pumas in the western mountains. He’d always assumed the pumas, mountain lions as the settlers called them, were about the same size as African lions.

Pumas were about as tall as a dog, but longer and lower, the way cats are always built, with long tails.

He was cautious of pumas, but not afraid.

The lion turned its head and looked at him, its eyes glinting golden, it’s mane darker than the rest of it’s tawny fur.

It was the size of a pony.

A bear, he thought. A lion is more like a bear.

He shifted his weight, rolling to his feet.

The lion stared at him, mouth lolling open.

He felt for his gun, but the lawmen back in the town had taken it off him.

A revolver wouldn’t stop a bear. It wouldn’t stop this.

The way to escape a puma, once you’d caught it’s attention, was to wait until it charged, and dart out of the way at the last moment. If you were fast enough, and incredibly lucky, you could get out of range of it’s deadly forepaws, and if your luck held, you would be far enough out of it’s range when it turned to shoot it a few times before it tore you to pieces.

He had no gun.

It was his only chance, though. If he could buy a few seconds, Frog would be back. Frog always came back to get him out of a jamb.

Gene tensed, eyes locked on the lion.

There was a high, ululating wail.

The lion leaped.

Gene leaped to the side, intending to roll and spring to his feet. Instead something slammed into him from the side and he was whisked across the clearing. For a moment he thought Frog had ridden in and caught him up, but as the whisk ended in an arcing rise at the edge of the clearing, he realized the arm that had lifted him up, which he’d caught automatically, on instinct, was pinning him to the chest of a strange man.

The man wasn’t riding a horse, he was holding a vine like a rope, and the motion of the swing was carrying them up towards the rooftop of branches and leaves. Suddenly, at the height of the swing, the man let go of the vine. They flung out into empty space, probably sixty feet above the ground, and dropping fast.

Gene considered himself pretty tough, but he would admit later that he yelled.

As easy as Gene would reach out and swing himself into Champion’s saddle, the man reached out and grabbed another vine, which began to swing like the first. At the height of the next arc, Gene was expecting it and yes, the man let go again.

Only now they were eighty feet in the air.

Gene bit back another yell, and wrapped his arm tighter around the strange man’s shoulders.

Was this a normal mode of transportation in Africa?

He missed his horse.

He missed the ground.

He’d rather walk than do  _ THIS. _

They swung several more times. They were moving quickly and covering a lot of ground. He was sure he would never be able to find his way back to the clearing where he’d lost Frog.

Frog was going to go back. The lion would still be there.

“Stop!” Gene yelled. “Stop. Stop. We have to go back. My friend is in trouble.”

Even if the lion didn’t get Frog, how was Frog going to find his way? Would he go back to town and get arrested? Would he go on to find Mr Cardigan in Suspicion Valley? If he did, then what? Gene didn’t trust that Cardigan character as far as an ace with a hole in it.

The strange man didn’t stop, though. They were probably a hundred feet off the ground on these swings, now, and Gene couldn’t stop by himself. The man didn’t even acknowledge Gene had spoken.

So he clung on grimly.

Eventually, they swung out, not into empty space, but up towards the wide branch of one of the huge jungle trees. The strange man planted his bare feet on the branch and released the vine.

Gene didn’t try to balance on the branch. His heeled riding boots were no good for balance. He could run on them, just fine, normally, but his head was spinning from the swinging, and the surface of the branch was part spongey, part slick with some sort of moss, and very uneven. Fortunately, it was as wide as a good horse’s back. He sank to his hands and knees when the strange man let go of him.

He looked up at the man. He was probably six inches taller than Gene’s 5’9, broader shouldered than Gene’s lean cowboy frame, and maybe forty pounds heavier, mostly muscle. He wasn’t one of the natives, he was white, with hair a bit darker than Gene’s own, thick and wavey. He had dark eyes, and he was wearing a fur loincloth, like the locals did. He had a huge knife on his hip.

He’d saved Gene from the lion.

That meant he was friendly, right?

“Please, you have to take me back,” Gene said, pointing back towards the vine, which was swinging back and forth, slower and slower without a weight to keep the momentum going. “My friend is back there.”

Desperate, and knowing it wouldn’t work, he tried indian signs.

The man glanced at his hands, eyes narrowing. He grunted, deep in his chest.

Gene pointed to himself, then out towards the vine again.

This didn’t produce any reaction whatsoever. The strange man leaned closer, making a soft noise in the back of his throat, like some men made to soothe nervous horses or dogs. He touched the brim of Gene’s hat. Gene swayed back. The man pushed at the brim, pushing it up and back and Gene reached up to replace it, but the man had pulled it off. His hands were like lightning.

He reached out with the other hand and caught Gene’s wrist when Gene grabbed for it, and never even looked up from his fascinated examination of the hat. He turned it over and looked inside. He sniffed it. He put it on his own head. All the time, holding Gene’s hand immobile by the wrist.

With a twisting motion, Gene wrenched out of the grasp.

His instinct said to snatch it back and give this stranger a good hiding to show him no one touched a cowboy’s hat. A hundred feet up in a tree, with footing he couldn’t trust, and obviously this fella was comfortable with, he didn’t stand a chance.

His only way out was to keep this fella happy.

“Fine. You want it? Keep it. Just take me back.”

The man grunted again. “Me?”

“Take  _ me _ back,” Gene insisted, tapping his chest, then pointing out at the jungle, again.

The man tapped Gene’s chest. “Me.”

“No,” Gene tapped the man’s chest, “You,” He motioned swinging, “Take me,” He tapped himself.

The man repeated the tapping.

Gene tried to remember how he’d dealt with folks back home who had spoken different languages. Usually there was someone around who spoke at least a little of both languages. He pointed to his own chest. “I’m Gene. Gene Autry.”

The strange man picked this up right away. “Gene.” He poked Gene in the chest.

“You?” Gene asked, pointing at the man who’d rescued him.

He poked Gene and repeated the name.

Gene poked him back. He was losing his patience but he was pretty well stuck until he could get his meaning across. “You?”

The man touched his own chest. “Tarzan.”

“Tarzan,” Gene repeated, with another gentle poke.

“Gene. Tarzan,” The man touched each of their chests in turn.

“Yes. Tarzan take Gene back.” Gene tried.

The man stood up and held his hand out.

Now they were going to try that undignified swinging again. Gene sighed. He straightened up, getting the best footing he could, and took the man’s hand. Instead of being pinned to the man’s side again, Gene found himself swung up onto the other man’s back, piggy back style.

“What!?” He demanded. He was shorter, and lighter than the other man, but this was just unacceptable. He tried to let go and slide down, but the man was holding his legs and the best he could hope for was to flop backwards, unbalance the other man and send them both wheeling off the tree. Before he could do anything else the man jumped.

He was still wearing Gene’s hat and the wind rushing past pushed it up and off his head. Gene caught it as it flew away upward and jammed it on his own head, wrapping both arms over the man’s shoulders just in time for Tarzan to catch another vine and send them swinging.

This time he aimed them towards the trunk of a tree, and landed on the surface like a cat, clinging to the vines and climbing fast up onto the fork of a higher branch. Gene clung with his knees to the man’s waist. This was still horribly undignified, but he actually felt much more comfortable in a position where he felt secure, and like he could control his own body, and even contribute to the momentum of the swing by shifting his weight.

They travelled deeper into the jungle. The trees grew thicker and the calls of wild animals more regular. 

Finally they landed on another tree branch, this one wider, much wider. Like a sidewalk. The tree must have been as big around as some of the great redwoods he’d seen out in California. But it had huge branches stretching out in every direction, wide and flat as highways. Up this high he could see sunlight glancing through the leaves. There were monkeys in the thinner branches, and birds in colors brighter than calico.

Tarzan took his hand and Gene took careful steps, along the tree branch to the center of the tree. There was a woven floor of branches and leaves here, like a huge bird’s nest. One side had a lean-to, covered with grasses and branches.

“Just a minute,” Gene sat down on the branch and pulled his boots off. He was going to break an ankle trying to walk around in these, up here. Tarzan watched him curiously. Gene picked up his boots and followed in his socked feet. The nest of branches was springy and surprisingly stable, but Gene was still glad he hadn’t tried to walk on it in his heeled cowboy boots.

The lean-to had a thick pile of leaves inside it, and some gourds, and some pieces of fruit, and a leopard skin rug.

“Is this where you live?” Gene asked.

“Tarzan,” The man poked himself.

“Tarzan sleep here?” Gene pretended to lay down, fold his hands under his head and close his eyes.

Tarzan smiled and nodded. He crawled into the low lean-to and picked up one of the pieces of fruit, holding it out to Gene.

It had been a long time since the meal before his arrest. Gene sat down, cross legged, like his indian friends had showed him was most comfortable, and reached for his knife.

It was gone. Like his revolver, taken by the lawmen who’d falsely arrested him.

Tarzan sat down with his legs sprawled out beside him and took a big bite of the other piece of fruit. The orange colored fruit dripped juice and pulp down his chin and he licked at it with his tongue, scooping the rest up with a finger and sucking the finger clean.

“Your manners could use some work, friend,” Gene said, taking a smaller bite of his own fruit. It was  _ very _ soft and juicy and some dripped onto his chin as well. He pulled out his bandana from his pocket and dabbed his mouth. They hadn’t taken everything from him, just the things they figured he could use as a weapon.

He took an inventory as he ate. The bandana, a roll of pigging string, a couple pieces of paper folded together with a pencil, a paper bag of tobacco, not because he smoked, but because it was good for trading, a box of matches. The last letter he’d gotten from his brother, Tex, telling him all about his adventures in Africa.

And his harmonica.

He didn’t play it much. He was nowhere near as good as Frog. He didn’t have his guitar, though. He wrapped his hand around it in his pocket and thought that, if he was stuck out here for awhile, at least he wouldn’t be without music.

The fruit tasted good. It tasted like maybe it had gotten over-ripe sitting there in the lean-to, but he couldn’t be sure what it had tasted like originally. He was glad for it. Tarzan had finished his and started on another. When Gene finished, his host offered him seconds.

A diet of fruit was going to be a problem in not too long. This Tarzan fellow couldn’t be living on fruit, could he?

Come to think of it, what kind of man lived in a nest in a tree? All the other locals he’d seen had lived in structures he’d at least recognized as houses. Then again, back home, prairie settlers often as not made up for the lack of wood on the grasslands by building temporary houses out of blocks of sod. He’d stayed in a soddy or two in his time, and sleeping out under the stars wasn’t a foreign notion, either. The big nest was actually pretty comfortable.

Still, Tarzan couldn’t live alone. The jungle was more dangerous than the prairie. At least there, you could see the danger coming.

Here, a man would need someone to watch his back.

As it happened, Tarzan’s family came back right then.

A hooting, hollering gang of apes.


	2. Tarzan's Family

At first, Gene thought the apes were attacking. Then he thought they were a band of forest creatures, other, bigger monkeys, just moving through, but they settled around the branches and the big nest, carrying babies like human women would, and settling in groups to stroke each other’s fur. They were very much like hairy men and women, and some of the mothers went about caring for their babies, like women would feed and clean their children.

One of the biggest females approached Tarzan and sat down next to him, running her fingers through his hair, and crooning. He crooned back, adding some rough grunts.

That was when Gene understood, what kind of man lived in a tree and moved about by swinging on vines. There were lots of legends about babies being found and raised by friendly animals.

These apes were so human-like, Tarzan must have found it easy to find a place among them.

A smaller ape, that was very visibly male, detached himself from his mother’ back, where he’d been riding, piggyback style, like Tarzan had carried Gene, and made his curious way over to Gene. He wasn’t as small as most of the babies, but not full grown yet, either. Probably like a yearling, but there was no way to tell for sure. The little male ape reached up and touched Gene’s hat.

“Cheetah,” Tarzan said, touching the little male.

He did speak some words of his own, then. That made sense, he would have had to come up with his name from somewhere.

“Cheetah,” Gene said, smiling down at the little ape.

The little ape pulled on the brim of Gene’s hat.

_ Here we go again, _ Gene thought. He reached up and took his hat off himself, showing it to Cheetah, but keeping a firm hold on it. The little ape sniffed it, like Tarzan had, but then turned his attention to Gene, and ran probing fingers through Gene’s blond hair. After a moment the probing intensified, the ape climbing right up onto Gene’s shoulder and clinging with one hand-like foot on the back of Gene’s shirt, and searching almost frantically, until he pinched his fingers tight on something and popped it in his mouth.

Gene had lived his whole life around horses and cattle, worked in barns and stables, and slept in dusty fields surrounded by milling animals, he was no stranger to fleas, ticks, mites.

He hadn’t ever expected to have anything snack off them, though.

The mama ape didn’t seem to be having much luck with Tarzan, either. For some reason, that eased Gene’s mind.

Suddenly the level of hooting and calling dropped dramatically. There was a change in the air, like thunder over the hills. Gene turned around and gasped.

There was an ape several times bigger than the mama who was grooming Tarzan. He had just climbed into the nest area. He had huge shoulders and forearms, a domed head, and fangs almost as big as the lion’s. Definitely comparable to a puma. He had black fur, except on his back, where it had gone to grey. He was so overmuscled in front, and light behind, he reminded Gene of a buffalo. Unlike the more commonly proportioned cattle, bison had huge forequarters, and arching humped shoulders, huge heads. 

He scanned the nest area, like he knew something was wrong.

His eyes settled on Gene.

They were a different color than the lion’s eyes, but the sense of doom was the same.

He grunted, raised himself onto his hind feet and hammered his chest with his fists.

The mama moved between the silver backed ape and Gene and Tarzan. She grunted and crooned.

The male moved towards her, opening his mouth and howling.

Gene started to his feet. Tarzan’s hand shot out and grabbed his collar, yanking him back to a seated position.

The silverback’s eyes had left the mama when Gene had moved, and were locked on him again. He pushed the mama out of the way and started for Gene. Gene scrambled back, beside the lean-to, looking for a clear way onto a branch or out of the nest.

Tarzan rolled to his feet and moved in front of the silverback, grunting deeply himself. The silverback stopped and looked at him. Then went to push him out of the way.

It must have taken terrific strength, but Tarzan pushed the silverback’s arm up and away.

The ape froze and stared at him.

He thumped one hand against his chest, like he was asking if there could possibly be a challenge.

Tarzan answered with one thump.

The silverback stood back up, pounded his chest, and howled. The sound was as loud as thunder in the confinement of the dense jungle.

Tarzan pounded his chest and uttered the same ululating wail Gene had heard just as the lion attacked. Tarzan’s call.

The silverback raised his fists together and brought them down to smash Tarzan. Tarzan rolled out of the way and turned just in time to grapple with the huge ape.

Gene piled in.

He leapt on the silver back, clamping his knees around the horse width waist, wrapping one arm down around the ape’s neck.

The ape tried to reach up and rip Gene off his back, a feat no horse yet had managed to do, but Tarzan held firm, grappling with the magnificent creature. The ape whirled and spun, trying to fling Gene free, trying to force Tarzan down, or back, off the edge of the tree.

This was deadly serious.

Gene locked his arm around the ape’s neck with the other arm, squeezing, flexing and pressing his bicep into the ape’s windpipe.

Tarzan was growling and snarling. He called again and again.

The fight seemed endless, but finally the beast’s muscles started to fail him. Tarzan forced him, step by step, back, not over one of the drops, but out of the nest, onto one of the highway wide branches. Tarzan forced the great ape down, keeping him from rising again.

Then Tarzan made eye contact with Gene, jerked his head to the side and grunted.

Taking his meaning, Gene released his hold on the male ape’s neck and leaped free, scrambling over his shoulder onto the branch beside Tarzan.

Tarzan released the ape’s hands and the mighty ape rose to all fours again, turned slightly away. The silverback rose up on his hind legs and pounded his chest again, but it sounded weak and uncertain, and he didn’t howl.

Tarzan beat his chest, loudly making his call. Beside him, Gene pounded his chest as well, adding a fast yodel.

The ape settled back onto all fours, turning and looking back over his shoulder.

It made Gene feel sad.

The great ape knuckled slowly along the tree branch, and disappeared through the foliage.

Tarzan looked sad.

Gene wondered if he’d just helped his new friend lick his Pa.

That was a hard thing for any man to live with.

Tarzan turned and walked back into the nest.

He went back and sat down outside the lean-to. 

Gene was still worried about Frog, and his brother, but a man needed his friend at a time like this, so Gene Autry went and sat down beside his friend, Tarzan, the Lord of the Apes.


	3. Singing In the Treetops

Night had fallen. Gene had spent the day rescuing his hat and boots from various playful apes, until Tarzan had set the boots firmly inside the lean-to, which was apparently off limits, and chased the little ones away from Gene’s hat. In the meantime, they had worked on new words.

The range was still pretty limited. Tarzan could say fruit and hut and the parts of various trees, and the names of half a dozen of the thirty or so apes, before Gene had stopped the introductions in favor of something more productive.

He still hadn’t had any luck with the concept of, men like me, white men, town, or anything like it. He couldn’t make Tarzan understand he had to go back.

Now the apes were bedding down, pulling leaves up around themselves like blankets, and Tarzan was gesturing towards the lean-to. Gene crouched and peered in. It was pretty tight in there. Probably plenty spacious for Tarzan, but not really for the two of them. He pulled his boots out of the lean-to and put them on, both to keep mischievous babies from taking them while he slept, to keep critters from making their way inside, and to keep his feet warm.

Tarzan climbed inside the lean-to, stretched out on the leopard skin, and gestured something that Gene took to mean, “There is plenty of room.”

He laid down on the leaves outside the door. The nest was softer than the bare ground, and he’d slept on that often enough. A bit after the sun fell, it began to rain.

A hand grabbed his arm and dragged him up the little rise, into the lean-to, the slide untucking his shirt and pulling his trousers low on his hips, and he found himself lying beside the man who’d rescued him. He struggled to rearrange his clothes like he liked them. It really was roomier inside the lean-to than it looked. There was plenty of room between Gene and the 'kitchen' where the rest of the fruit and the gourd full of drinking water sat. The leopard skin over the leaves made a much softer bed.

Tarzan lay on his side, head propped on fist, and smiled at him. Gene smiled back, weakly. He wasn’t used to being pushed and carried and dragged around. He’d have thrashed anyone who tried it back home.

Maybe being here had taken the heart out of him. Worrying for Frog and Tex. Not being able to take care of himself, that was taking a toll. He couldn’t even get onto the ground. He’d explored the edges of the tree, but it was a hundred feet down, just to reach the next layer of leaves that blocked the view of the ground.

His hand closed on the harmonica in his pocket. He pulled it out and found the right note. He couldn’t find two in succession without a trial, so he just held the instrument, which was warm in his hand.

Tarzan looked very interested, but stopped paying attention to it when Gene let his hand rest beside him on the bed.

He started to sing, quietly, the song he’d been singing with his horse rounding crew, the day he’d gotten the telegram from Tex. 

“To most folks there’s a spot that lives forever

Deep down within their fondest memory

Tho I have been a rover I have never

Seen any place where I would rather be.”

The song was tugging at his heartstrings. His voice wavered over the chorus.

“When it’s round up time in Texas

And the bloom is on the sage

Then I long to be in Texas

Back a ridin’ on the range”

He sighed.

Tarzan made a crooning sound, matching the rhythm and the tone of the song, but without any of the words. He had a nice voice. He might be a good singer, when they got back to civilization and he learned to speak. 

Gene settled back on the leopard skin bed, and after awhile, Tarzan did the same. Gene thought it might be a good idea to get Tarzan back to town. Maybe even back to the states. Maybe they could sing together. Tarzan had a nice, baritone voice. It would be nice to be able to sing harmonies with him. He would make a good addition to Gene’s band of cowboys.

He was going to be a legend with a rope, Gene could just see it.


End file.
